


The Blood In Your Veins

by LonelyThursday



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon Era, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Minor Violence, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, vampire attack, vampire stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27807868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyThursday/pseuds/LonelyThursday
Summary: While walking back from Brooklyn Poker Night, Race gets attacked in an alley.
Relationships: Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	The Blood In Your Veins

“It’s been a pleasure beatin’ ya, fellas,” Race grinned as he took the pot yet again. A whole pile of coins and a couple cigars were all his. “Ya know where ta finds me if ya want ta get bled dry again!”

His opponents all grumbled to themselves as they shuffled upstairs to nurse their bruised egos in bed. Eventually, only Race and Spot were left. 

“Ya sure ya want ta walk all da way back ta ‘Hattan tonight?” Spot asked. “Yer more than welcome to stay here.”

Brooklyn Poker Night is famous among all the New York boroughs’ newsies, and most kids that come to play either leave early to make the walk back to their own lodging house, or stay the night and walk back in the morning with a bag full a papes. 

And sometimes Race would stay the night, not tonight though, tonight he was walking home. 

“Nah, I promised Romeo I’d take him ta sell wit’ me at Sheepshead tomorrow,” he waved off Spot’s concern. “Easier ta walk home now than ta do it in da mornin’.”

“Sure,” Spot shrugged. 

Race said his goodbyes to Spot, and left the Brooklyn Newsies’ Lodging House. He wasn’t the only one walking around Brooklyn at this hour, but he’s practiced enough to know how to keep his head down and not draw unwanted attention to himself.

Well... no one, until just a few blocks away from the Brooklyn Bridge, when a hand clamped over his mouth. Race tried to utilize his boney elbows, but the person behind him refused to let go. 

They dragged him into a nearby alley, and as soon as they were out of sight from any passers-by, they—

Race has a splitting headache when he wakes up in the morning. ‘Morning’ is a generous thing to call it since the sun isn’t out yet, and the morning bell hasn’t even rung. 

Even so, it’s clearly one of those mornings where he’s not getting back to sleep — not with this headache at least — and it’s light enough for him to see a little bit of the bunk room, so Race slips off the top bunk and stumbles his way towards the washroom. 

The room is spinning — which probably isn’t a good sign — and he just barely catches himself before falling on top of a sleeping Kid Blink. Maybe he’s sick? Of all the days to get sick, it _had_ to be the one where he’d promised to take Romeo to Sheepshead. 

The washroom doesn’t have any windows, so Race has to light the lantern in order to see. What he sees in the mirror is… unexpected, to say the least. 

Apparently he’d slept in yesterday’s shirt and trousers. Which isn’t too weird in it of itself, except that he’s still wearing his suspenders over his shoulders — if he’s going to sleep in his clothes, he at _least_ takes his suspenders off. 

That’s not all, Race has never been pale in his life. He’s got natural, olive, Italian skin, combined with the fact that he spends a majority of his day out in the sun. Suffice to say, he’s not pale. Except that his face is deathly white now, and not just his face. His arms and neck too, look as though he’s never gone outside a day in his life. He looks like Two-Shoes after he’s succumbed to fever a few years ago, before coroners took him away. 

But the weirdest part — the absolute _most_ concerning part — is the blood stains on his shirt. 

The darkest stains are on his shoulder — as if he’d been bleeding from his neck — but there are smaller stains all over his torso. 

He’s not in pain. 

Well, except for his head, but he doesn’t _think_ that’s where the blood came from. 

There are two spots on his neck, right above the darkest bloodstain. The spots are barely there — tiny and old looking — and definitely don’t look like they’d been bleeding any time recently. 

Race is so focused on the spots that he doesn’t hear the door open behind him. He _does,_ however, notice when a wonderfully enticing smell — like walking past a fancy restaurant when the door opens, letting just the barest whiff of the chef’s special leak out — fills the bathroom. 

“Hey, Race. I weren’t expectin’ anyone else ta be up yet.” Albert greets as he shuffles in, barely awake. “How was-”

Race is on him in an instant, clamping one hand over Albert’s mouth and using the other to push him into the wall. Albert makes a muffled sound of alarm behind the hand, but Race ignores it as he plunges his teeth deep into the soft skin on the side of Albert’s neck. Albert’s shout of confusion soon turns to screams of pain and one hand comes up to shove desperately at Race’s chest. It doesn’t help, and Race continues to suck at the fresh blood oozing out from the twin puncture marks until the screams turn to weak, pained moans, and the shoving becomes little more than soft pats before ceasing altogether. 

Reality comes crashing over Race all at once and he springs away from his friend as quickly as possible. Albert crumples to the ground as soon as Race’s hands are no longer there to support him, skin pale, eyes shut. His head lists to the side, giving Race a perfect view of what he’s done. 

A perfect view of the two holes sluggishly bleed on the side of Albert’s neck. 

Oh god, he’s killed Albert!

Race stands frozen. What are you supposed to do when you accidentally murder your best friend in the washroom early in the morning? Especially when you instinctively murdered him by biting his neck? And what the fuck was that about?

He _bit_ Albert on the _neck_. So the liquid that had been pouring into his mouth must have been blood, but it didn’t _taste_ like blood. It had tasted so good, like the best soup he’d ever had. He’d killed Albert to drink his soup-blood. 

_Oh_ FUCK! 

_I’m a vampire!_

Jack is shocked from sleep suddenly and completely; wide awake with a definitive clarity that some is wrong. 

He’s pretty sure his sense of knowing somethings wrong is just werewolf instinct, but Crutchie insists that it’s just because he’s a worrywart. Either way, one of his kids is definitely in trouble, and he needs to find them. 

It’s not Crutchie, he can tell that from the get go. Crutchie is still lying beside him, asleep and content-smelling, so it’s one of the kids in the building. 

Jack makes his way cautiously to the fire escape, careful to avoid all the runes Crutchie’s drawn all over the roof to protect the building and its inhabitants. A protection charm to ward off those with malicious intent, a healing charm to ward off disease, a calming charm to ward off nightmares, a luck charm to keep the building from falling apart, and so on and so on. The runes weren’t as effective as they’d be if they were worn or drawn directly on skin, but this was the easiest way for Crutchie to give every one of the newsies a little protection without having to tell them they’re a witch or sneaking the runes onto them. 

Jack creeps down the fire escape and into a window on the top floor. He relies mostly on his extremely heightened sense of smell to suss out the disturbance. The top floor seems clear, every newsie is in their bed, safe and content smelling, on to the next floor. 

The second floor down is a little different than the top floor as Jack is immediately assaulted by a faint, but sharp smell of blood. Jack follows the scent, checking every bed on the way, just in case. Everyone is in their bed and well, except Race and Albert. Neither of them are in their beds — though both of their beds are thoroughly laced with their respective scents — and their bunk has a slightly stronger metallic smell than the rest of the beds, which means one of them was probably bleeding. 

Jack reaches a hand out and finds that Albert’s bed is still warm, while Race’s is cold. Race probably slept in Brooklyn since last night was Poker Night, so Albert is most likely the one bleeding. 

A quick glance around the room shows that a faint amount of light is spilling out from underneath the door to the washroom, and sure enough, Albert’s scent trails from his bed to the washroom — there’s also a vague trail of Race’s scent, but it’s too weak to be Race himself, and is more likely a result of Albert and Race spending a lot of time together. 

“Al?” Jack whispers, tapping on the door. The scent of blood is stronger over here, probably strong enough for a normal human to be able to smell it, which really only hikes up Jack’s level of worry. And it doesn’t help that Albert _doesn’t answer._ “Albert, you in there?”

There’s a faint noise behind the door, like someone trying to move around without being heard. Double not good. 

“I’m coming in, Al.”

“NO!” Some hisses from inside the washroom. Someone who is definitely _not_ Albert. Shit. 

The lantern’s on in the washroom, but if Jack was relying only on sight to help him understand what was going on, he would be thoroughly confused. 

Luckily, Jack has his heightened sense of smell to help him piece it all together. 

Albert’s slumped against the far wall — he looks dead, but the way his chest moves slightly and combined with the lack of death-smell suggests that he’s just unconscious. Race is standing in the middle of the room — weird since Jack hadn’t picked up more than a faint trace of his scent earlier — his shirt covered in blood, and even more blood dripping down his chin from his mouth, looking around wildly like a cornered animal. 

It takes a second for Jack to register that the stale scent lingering in the air is coming from Race. Race’s natural smell is muted and saturated with a stale scent that only means one thing. 

Vampire. 

“It’s not what it looks like!” Race jumps in immediately. 

“What does it look like?” Jack asks slowly because Race is a newly turned vampire with — as far as Jack knows — no previous knowledge of the supernatural, so he’s probably more than a little freaked out. 

“I didn’t mean to!” Which is pretty obvious, Jack can’t imagine Race ever hurting Albert on _purpose._

“I know you didn’t,” Jack says softly, comfortingly. 

“I killed Albert!” Race cries. 

Wait… _what?_

“No you didn’t?” It wasn’t supposed to be a question, but somehow it still was. 

“I killed Albert,” Race sobs again, quieter. He’s clearly not talking to Jack anymore, he’s starting to work himself into a panic, and he’d definitely be crying if he were still able to. 

Jack carefully ventures farther into the room, but Race doesn’t react at all. He stops in front of Albert’s unmoving body and gives a little sniff. 

That’s all he needs to confirm that Albert is definitely not dead. 

“I killed him,” Race continues to sob. 

“He’s not dead, Racer,” Jack insists. When Race doesn’t stop sobbing, Jack grabs his face to force eye contact. “You did _not_ kill Albert,” he enunciates slowly. “Albert is alive. He might be a little woozy when he wakes up, but he _will_ wake up. You did not kill him.”

“Are you sure?” 

It’s a quiet, broken question, coming from a frightened, lost child, and it squeezes Jack’s bleeding heart hard. Race isn’t like Jack, he didn’t grow up in this world; he was forced into it quickly and violently, without any warning or instruction, and almost killed his best friend as a result. 

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Later, Jack would shoo Race off to the roof so that he and Crutchie could explain the supernatural world to him. Later, he would put Albert back in his bed and tell everyone that he was just sick when they asked. Later, he would explain to Albert what happened, and that Race wasn’t going to attack him again. And later Crutchie would force Race and Albert to carry around protective charms with them as they did with everyone who knew they were a witch. 

But for now, there’s a scared kid who really needs a hug, and Jack’s going to give it to them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Stay Safe  
> Wear a Mask  
> Don't be Stupid  
> Happy Holidays (don't visit family)


End file.
